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Diesel Reference
IT IS twenty-two years since the last-edition of C. C. Pounder's "Diesel Engine Principles and Practice" was published. While it cannot have been an easy task to produce a single volume which dealt with the design, operation and maintenance of all types of diesel engine in the fifties and sixties (Mr Pounder originally began his work in 1955), consider how much more difficult that is today. The diesel engine has been extensively developed over the last two decades.
With the aid of some thirty distinguished contributors, each an expert in at least one area of diesel engine engineering, Leslie Lilly, an engineer who worked for Ricardo Consulting Engineers for 48 years, has responded to this daunting challenge. The result is the "Diesel Engine Reference Book".
To describe this as simply an updated version of "Diesel Engine Principles and Practice" would be to do its editor an injustice. Several new chapters have been added to take account of recent developments, and all the original chapters re-written.
One of the new chapters deals with automotive engine noise and it is typically thorough, without being long-winded. The introductory section explains the theory of the subject and the following sections deal with legislation, noise and vibration measurement, and, in considerable detail, various methods of noise and vibration control.
As with every chapter, a list of reference works and a bibliography at the end give the reader in search of more information some useful pointers to even more detailed work on the subject.
All sizes and types of diesel engines, from the smallest auxiliary engine to the largest marine engine, are covered in this 32 chapter book. It is particularly well illustrated with around 900 line drawings, graphs and photographs. A useful appendix lists manufacturers, by engine types, from Europe, North America, Japan and some Eastern European countries.
This is a reference book in the true sense of the word. Engineers looking for guidance on any aspect of diesel engines will be likely to make it their first reference.
Despite the Diesel Engine Reference Book's excellence, its price of £57.50 (it is available only in hard-backed form), seems difficult to justify on the face of it. No doubt the publishers could do so by pointing to the many distinguished contributors. Authoritative information is never cheap nowadays.
However, a better argument for an engineer trying to justify such expenditure to an accountant who has no interest in the difference between swirl and squish, might be that the "Diesel Engine Reference Book" could perhaps replace at least four other books, at about £15 each, on separate aspects of diesel engines.
The Diesel Engine Reference Book, edited by Leslie Lilly, is published by the Butterworth group, Borough Green, Sevenoaks, Kent.
Automotive technology
PREDICTIONS can no longer be left to astrologers. They are also an important responsibility of scientists and automotive engineers. That is underlined in a new book, the first in a series, on the future for science and technology, edited by Professor Bernard Taylor of Henley Management College. "The Future for Automotive Technology" is written by Ulrich Seiffert and Peter Waltzer, respectively executive director of research, and director of research — power plant and aerodynamics — at Volkswagenwerk in Wolfsburg, West Germany. Volkswagen's research and development budget last year was £350 million.
The book makes it clear why a significant part of that sum was spent on research into alternative fuels. VW's engineers predict that by the year 2000 only 50 per cent of cars will be using petrol. At least 23 per cent will be running on methanol, the alcohol produced from coal, while the remaining quarter will use diesel (15 per cent), lpg (6 per cent), and ethanol (alcohol from plants) (3.5 per cent). What about the electric vehicle? The book predicts that only 0.5 per cent of cars will be battery powered by 2000.
Electronics, on the other hand, and not surprisingly, will continue to become increasingly important say Dr Seiffert and Dr Watzer. They include in the book an artist's impression of a future motorway with cars being guided by rails but point out the disadvantages of high cost and "psychological and legal consequences." They say that the ALI electronic guidance and information systems, on which field trails began in the Ruhr area of Germany in 1980, has already demonstrated that most car drivers would accept a system of this kind. But "further efforts will have to be made to reduce the investment costs for the government."
Cost reduction is also cited as the most significant reason for looking at alternative materials for car bodies and engines.
Handbook
THE FIRST edition of the Kogan Page Transport Engineer's Handbook was published last year and aimed to provide for operating engineers, what the Transport Manager's Handbook, has for so long been providing for transport managers, that is a concise reference work. This year's Engineeer's Handbook, again with Graham Montgomerie as its consultant editor, keeps to a similar format. Its first part contains articles on topical engineering subjects by a number of specialist contributors. The second, smaller part contains a directory of manufacturers, distributors and trade associations.
Unlike the Transport Manager's Handbook, this book, apart from its directory, cannot readily be updated from year to year and its success will depend to a large extent on the appeal of the subject matter in part one. Graham Montgomerie is well qualified to choose those subjects, having worked for some 20 years in road transport engineering, 11 with Leyland, and nine with Commercial Motor, initially as its technical editor, and later as its enginering editor. He is currently publications manager to FTA. The 1984 Transport Engineer's Handbook gives due prominence to the many recent interesting developments in commercial vehicle transmissions. Leyland's continuously variable transmission is described, and in a chapter entitled "Commercial Vehicle Driving Techniques," Keith Parmee of Eaton Truck Components (not as the sleeve notes say, "Eaton Trucks") gives an insight into how one major manufacturer of transmissions is aiming to make the driver's job easier.
The Transport Engineer's Handbook 1984 is published by Kogan Page, 120 Pentonvilie Road, London, W1. Its price is E12 (hardback).